But in reality, things didn’t go so well in the morning.
I woke up at 8:20 because the door to my room slammed loudly.
“I’ve been trying to wake you for half an hour,” my stepmother grumbled. “Were you drinking yesterday? Breakfast is ready, so eat and get lost somewhere until evening. I have things to do today.”
Her “things,” as far as I understand, involve hanging out with friends. They’ll buy some soda, sweet syrup, a bottle of cheap vodka with the “earned” thousand from yesterday and paint each other’s nails while watching some sappy melodrama. Here, you wouldn’t want to assert your right to stay, even if you wanted to. I remember how one of her friends dragged me by my belt into the shower a couple of years ago, smiling mysteriously… And if only she were a beautiful woman, but she wasn’t…
Okay, forgetting about that.
“I’ll be there in a moment,” I mumble.
I dressed, checked my phone… and got a bit nervous. There was a missed call at seven in the morning from an unknown number. It could be spam… Or maybe someone is trying to figure out people who sleep very soundly?
“And put your phone on silent!” my stepmother yelled from the hall. “If it wakes me or Fedya again, you’ll wake up at six and start cooking!”
I don’t understand why this should scare me, but for sure, no one will wake me up at six now. However, I need to leave the apartment before my stepmother starts plotting to kick me out.
I swallowed the remnants of under-salted semolina, which could have made it into the Guinness World Records for the number of lumps it had. I threw a charger, a couple of days’ worth of clean clothes, pants, t-shirts, and other useful items into my backpack. Yesterday I had a quick look at some apartment rental ads and even called about two, arranging meetings for ten and eleven o’clock today.
When I stepped outside, I nearly hissed from the sting in my eyes. The sun was covered by clouds, but the day still seemed too bright. My eyes immediately teared up from the light. I spent a couple of minutes not straying far from the entrance until I got used to it. What a bizarre situation…
I’ve never rented an apartment in my life, but before doing so, I traveled around the internet to learn how to do it correctly. I arrived at the address five minutes before the owner. When the owner arrived, I carefully inspected the apartment first. I pointed out a dent in the wardrobe and the wobbly faucet in the kitchen, so he wouldn’t think to blame me for them when I was moving out. He nodded knowingly and suggested I message him on WhatsApp if I found any other deficiencies within three days.
“If everything is satisfactory, let’s have the money, your passport—I’ll take a picture, and here are the keys.”
Passport? Well, this game can be played by two.
“Can I take a picture of your passport too?”
“Why?”
“Well, you’re going to photograph mine for some reason.”
The man, with a sour expression, reached into his pocket, pulled it out, and handed me the document.
“If it’s absolutely necessary, then here you go.”
“Thank you,” I replied, but I wasn’t in a hurry to hand over the money. I had read some unpleasant stories where one person rents out an apartment, and a couple of days later, another person shows up with documents proving he is the real owner of the apartment. So I asked:
“I’d like to see some paper confirming your ownership of this apartment or your right to rent it out.”
“What? This apartment belongs to my sister, I assure you! She’s not in town right now, but I can call her number, and you can talk to her.”
“And besides talking, is there any way to see something from the necessary papers?”
“Of course not! No one is going to show you such documents.”
The man scratched his stubble and snorted:
“Do you know what, kid? I’m not renting you anything. Come on, get out of the apartment.”
Well, fine, I still have another apartment in mind.
I got on the bus and called the next landlord from the site. We arranged it, and I arrived. A man about forty years old, plump and bearded, resembling a bear, greeted me. He immediately shook my hand and led me through the apartment, showing me the bathroom, the room, and the kitchen.
I liked the apartment. It may be unremarkable and plain, but I liked it.
Gray (but without holes or stains, like at home) wallpaper, gray (but intact, without cracks) tiles in the bathroom. There’s a washing machine, a stove, dishes.
Again, the entrance doesn’t smell like sewage and other filth.
“The aunt was living here, went off to the south,” he said. “So I’m renting it out. If you like it, let’s see your passport, I’ll write down the details.”
“I’m satisfied,” I nodded. “I’m ready to move in right now.”
He handed me the keys, and I gave him the money, without any questions about the necessary documents—enough, I had seen more than enough in the last apartment.
When the door slammed behind the owner’s nephew, I stopped smiling. I walked around the apartment again, considering that I would need to clean the faucet in the bathroom—the water was flowing in a thin stream, while the kitchen had normal pressure. I needed to fill the fridge with food—I feel uncomfortable without provisions at home, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
That’s it, Arthur. You’ve paid for the apartment, and now you have just enough money for groceries for the next week. This isn’t a world of unlimited opportunities waiting for you on the other side of sleep; this is reality, where you’ll need to get a job to have something to eat.
After flopping onto the bed, I realized that the surprises for today were not over: the blanket smelled so bad that I jumped to my feet in one movement. “The aunt ‘went away,’ huh…”
I checked the bedding, but the bed seemed clean. The linens were fresh, the mattress didn’t smell, and there were no suspicious stains on the bed or the sheets.
But that didn’t change the fact that the blanket reeked of death. A surprise from the landlord, great.
My first impulse was to call the apartment owner and ask loudly why he didn’t say where his “aunt” went. But after considering the situation, I decided to hold off on calling for now. The apartment was fine; I didn’t want to prematurely move out, especially if the guy wanted to keep playing the jerk and find flaws that supposedly didn’t exist before I moved in. So I delayed the confrontation.
I don’t know what this says about me, but I’m ready to live in an apartment where someone died. But I won’t sleep under a blanket where it happened.
In the closet, there was a smaller blanket, which I spread out instead. I took the “surprise” blanket to the laundromat, where, according to their rules, I threw it into a huge washing machine by myself. They said I could pick it up dry in about five hours.
I immediately sent a message to the apartment owner.
“Hello, it’s Arthur. The blanket on the bed smelled really bad. I took it to the laundromat and paid 1200 for the wash. I would appreciate it if you could reimburse me.”
I doubled the amount, but the landlord didn’t ask for the receipt—ten minutes later, the money appeared in my account. Great.
I went to buy groceries and unpacked my things in the closet. They looked pitiful—over five shelves, I arranged what barely fit on one.
Then I opened the downloaded app for anonymous internet browsing, launched a new browser, and found the site of the Floating Islands.
There was almost the same chaos as on the islands. Some were quietly sobbing, some were arguing. There were many messages from beggars.
“Humans are social creatures! I don’t fly to the islands because I can’t fight these monsters on my own! If I could find allies to defeat the nightmares, I wouldn’t be sitting here. Or maybe someone will give me advice on how to survive without risking my life?”
“I’ve read stories about how people fight the beasts. This battle is clearly beyond my strength: I’m forty years old, I have a belly the size of a beer jug, I’m out of breath, and I have VSD. Good people, if anyone could send me gear, even an old sword and some armor, I wouldn’t just sit still! I need to prepare more thoroughly to have even the slightest chance of victory.”
“I’m afraid to fight the monsters and understand that I will never dare to. I will never fly to another island. But I’m a wealthy person, I have money here in reality! I can send you ten thousand for a liter of water, a food brick, or half a kilo of meat. And if someone finds me and agrees to guard me, I’ll reward them handsomely.”
I couldn’t take it anymore and wrote what I thought.
“Think about it: the island gets 10 units of energy every morning. If each of you just sits there, you’ll die of hunger or fall behind those who are spending that energy. If you search the islands, you might die from monsters/traps, but you could also find something useful! It seems foolish to sit still and beg others to feed you. You need to explore the islands, fly, instead of hoping for luck and sudden help.”
The longer the time goes by, the worse the condition of the hungry people becomes, and the fewer chances they have of survival. Without food and water, their bodies will weaken, and even encountering a lone flying snake will become a severe trial. All sane and reasonable people should move from island to island, train, and provide for themselves as soon as they understand how the control lever works.
But no, instead of making sensible guides, exchanging information, and training, they sit and whine. They know that there are nightmares, but they don’t make classifications, nor do they leave detailed advice on how to fight them. So essentially, instead of fighting, these people only scream “feed me,” “give me weapons.” Hello, you’ve been given a second life, and they didn’t even take the first one! Use it!
Of course, these whiners might find a kind-hearted person who will provide them support and convince others to share water and food with the suffering. But to me, that’s just a disservice. If you want to help such people, grab them by the scruff and throw them on a deserted island. The rest is foolishness and a waste of resources. But that’s not my business; everyone lives as they want. I prefer to be rational and selfish. This attitude is beneficial and promotes survival.
I waited, and someone even replied to me:
“Most people have never encountered a situation in life when they were thrown onto an incomprehensible piece of a flying rock, surrounded by nothing but sky, with islands teeming with various beasts around. They are too weak physically for this world. With every hour, they grow hungrier and thirstier. And they have two options left: fly to another island or stay on the rock, hoping to be saved or fed. You won’t believe me, but most will choose the second option because they understand the risks that await them on the islands—the fools who got caught by a tiny nightmare and escaped vividly described their encounter with a TERRIFYING CREATURE, dissuading others from flying there.
People shift responsibility for themselves onto external factors. A person will die without water in three days, but they believe that a lot can happen in those days. Someone might fly to them, a benefactor might appear with a lake of clear water (and food, right), or you might realize something, grow desperate, and eventually take action.”
“So now, you’re just going to sit and wait? Seriously?”
“You can see the number of people connected to the chat. By my calculations, one hundred forty people have already died. What does this say? That the option to stay away from the islands is better than flying to them. Those who flew died, while those who stayed are still alive. If you look at it this way, the logic of cowards isn’t so stupid—if you whine more pitifully, you might even be thrown some food bricks and water. I can understand these people: perhaps if I ended up in this world and stumbled upon a story from a frightened coward who was scared by a twenty-centimeter mosquito, I would also sit still. At least for the first day. Over time, of course, the fear would tighten, and hunger would knock at the door. But initially, it really makes sense to not rush; life is more important, even if it’s a life on the edge. Besides, while sitting on their backsides, people study the forum and gain experience.”
I snorted.
“If they’re gaining experience for the second or third consecutive day, then why are they so stupid? I agree with the argument further that people are afraid of the unknown and therefore chose a position of waiting and gathering information, but I’m sure that as soon as a normal person gets hungry, they will immediately seek food and water. It is better to take a chance in the unknown than to die of hunger. A person might survive without water for three days, but after the first day, you will reach a state where you will only think about how to drink or eat. The feeling of the unknown will no longer frighten them as much; only hope for a better future will remain. I believe that if the screamers were not fed, it would do them good.
“That sounds like a fascist call to starve people,” someone interjected into our conversation.
“Excuse me, are you by any chance one of the screamers? It sounds like advice to throw someone into the water to teach them to swim. You need to fly to survive! Normal people reading our dialogue will come to the right conclusions, and I advise you to drink well before sleeping so that at least in this world, you won’t be tormented by thirst.”